Inspiration and Despair

Life is a game, a cooperative game, that you play to win. The universe is playful, not purposeful.

There are only two things we have to do in this life:
1. Die
2. Live until then

Only the brave deserve the fair.
Book of Fairy Tales

I wanted to get out of this world of dreams. I kept searching for the door that would lead me out. Now I understand there never was a door.
Cowboy BeBop, the Movie

There is no answer to be found in the cards, or in the stars, or in divination of any sort. The answer is within you or it is nowhere.
Charity

No one lives the life he meant to live.

There's Never A Forever Thing

There is no happy ending; there is only death, dismemberment and the crucifixion of our hearts with the passing of the forms that we have loved.
Joseph Campbell, Hero with a Thousand Faces

Alpha was the brain,
Beta was the muscle,
Gamma was the wing,
But Delta, Delta was the way home.
I read this in a book of science fiction long ago. If only I could remember what story, what author. I'd like to read it again.

But a Zen master had said …
You are obsessed with values. Who knows whether anything is misfortune or blessing? Nobody knows. All is never given to you ... Life comes in fragments and to judge the past is to assume you know the total.

No snowflake in an avalanche every feels responsible.

To Jane: a gentle lady who taught our children and myself a lesson not found in the pages of this, nor perhaps, any other book -- how to live, and then to die, with grace.
inscription in a book on sailing

To my first wife,
Eleanor Forrester Parker
1880-1960,
Who rode the horse,
Played the violin
Wrote poetry
And loved life --
For what she taught me long ago.
Guy Murchie, The Seven Mysteries of Life

So you see I have come to doubt
All that I once held as true
I stand alone without beliefs
The only truth I know is you
Simon and Garfunkel

Time it was and what a time it was
It was a time of innocence
A time of confidences
Long ago it must be
I have a photograph
Preserve your memory
They're all that's left you
Simon and Garfunkel

Only the strong of heart can be well-married, since they do not turn to marriage to supply what no human being can ever get from another -- a sure sense of the fortress within him or herself.

Silliness is the antidote for dark days.

We choose to do these things not because they are easy but because they are hard.

A life lived in fear is a life half-lived.

A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope.
Livy

Theme from Firefly
Take my love.
Take my land.
Take me where I cannot stand.
I don't care,
I'm still free.
You can't take the sky from me.

Take me out to the black.
Tell 'em I ain't comin' back.
Burn the land
And boil the sea.
You can't take the sky from me

(Music Interlude)

Have no place I can be
Since I found Serenity
But you can't take the sky from me.